Book Review: “Forty Thieves” by Thomas Perry

Forty Thieves by Thomas Perry

Prolific Thomas Perry is one of the finest writers today, giving us beautifully crafted, fast moving thrillers, with some unforgettable situations and characters.

Forty Thieves is certainly well plotted, a mysterious death in LA that leads into dangerous and deadly danger and violence. But unfortunately, this is not one of his better stories. Perry seems to have cut corners here.

For one thing, there is far more explicit violence than necessary (and more than many of his earlier books). Pages of details about guns and explosives, multiple gunfights and shootings. I lost track how many. This raises tension, but it’s a cheap tactic. And I don’t really enjoy reading about guns and gun violence.

Worse, the characters and dialog are shallow and unrealistic. The protagonists do not talk to each other like people who have been married thirty years, they talk like a really bad movie script. And the other characters are even less well developed.

The plot itself makes almost no sense, from start to finish. It is propelled by people having secrets that they are willing to kill to keep. The ultimate resolution makes no more sense than the rest of it.

We know for a fact that Perry can do much better than this. Read his other books, Metzger’s Dog and the Jane Whitefield books.

Still, I read it all, eager to unravel the mystery and hoping that everyone survives.

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1. Perry, Thomas, Forty Thieves, New York, The Mysterious Press, 2015.

 

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